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Dessert

Treacle Sponge

A steamed sponge cake made with flour, suet, egg, golden syrup, milk, baking powder, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Treacle Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  2. Add the golden syrup and milk to the egg and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, suet, baking powder, and ground ginger.

  4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with sweet sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it steams.
Suet
Adds fat for a tender, moist crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the sponge rises and becomes light.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and a rich, moist texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until combined.. Mixing just until combined keeps the batter light. Overworking develops gluten in the flour, which can make the sponge dense and tough.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, milk, syrup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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